Modern storage facilities handle a large number of inventory items on a daily basis. Examples of such inventory items may include groceries, apparels, or the like. The storage facilities typically store the inventory items on shelves of storage units, and utilize mobile robots to transport the inventory items or the storage units between various locations in the storage facilities for order fulfillment and/or inventory management. For example, for fulfillment of an order, the mobile robots may transport one or more storage units storing the corresponding inventory items to an operation station in the storage facility. At the operation station, an operator may handle (e.g., pick and put-down) the inventory items for the order fulfillment. Such systems, however, rely on manual intervention which is time-consuming. Further, manual operationality has limited applicability in a large-scale facility that aims to fulfil a large number of orders within a short duration of time.
Robotic manipulators are widely deployed in the storage facilities to solve the aforementioned problem and to ensure efficient management of the inventory items. While the robotic manipulators provide efficient handling of inventory items, they have a few limitations of their own. For example, such robotic manipulators may only be utilized to handle non-deformable inventory items. When such robotic manipulators are utilized to handle deformable objects (e.g., apparels, deformable cartons, or the like) that are arranged in a stack, it is difficult for the robotic manipulators to prevent the deformation of the deformable objects. For example, when a robotic manipulator is utilized for handling a folded pair of jeans, an appearance of the jeans may change from a folded state to an unfolded state (i.e., a deformed state). Also, in an attempt to handle the deformable object arranged in the stack, such robotic manipulators may deform various other objects in the stack. The robotic picking technologies are thus unable to pick up such deformable objects and maintain original form factors of the object (e.g., a form factor in which the deformable object was stored originally) and the rest of the stack.
In light of the foregoing, there exists a need for a technical solution that prevents deformation of the deformable objects when being handled by a robotic manipulator at storage facilities.